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The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (film)
Encyclopedia
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a film based on Michael Chabon
's best-selling novel of the same name
, which was published in 1988. The screenplay was written by Rawson Marshall Thurber
, who also directed. It was Produced by Michael London
and Executive Produced by Omar Amanat
. Shooting in Pittsburgh
ended in October 2006, with the film set for release in 2008
. It made its world premiere in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival. Set in 1980s Pittsburgh, the film follows two young men's affairs with one woman, and later also each other.
in the role of Art Bechstein. By August of the same year, Chabon announced that the project had fallen apart, sadly writing, "Ah, well. Maybe someday."
Director Rawson Marshall Thurber
got hold of the project sometime prior to 2006, when he began filming after convincing Michael Chabon he could make it work. Chabon had seen the script, and was pleased with it. In order to facilitate the film adaptation, Thurber removed the character of Arthur Lecomte "whole cloth" from the original Chabon novel in what he described as "the most glaring change". Lecomte, a gay
man for whom Art begins to develop feelings, had to be removed because Thurber felt strongly "that in order for the film to function properly, it needed a more efficient and more cinematic engine — in short, a love triangle
." Consequently, many elements of Arthur Lecomte were folded into the character of Cleveland.
created a minor stir in Pittsburgh when, in a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone
, she referred to the city as "Shitsburgh", saying, "Can you believe this is my life? Will you pity me when you're back in your funky New York apartment and I'm still in Pittsburgh? I need to get more glamorous films and stop with my indie year." Miller has been parodied in Pittsburgh media (including one article that was headlined "Semi-famous actress dumps on the 'Burgh") and criticized for making what was seen as an unnecessarily disparaging remark, given the special treatment the film's cast and crew had been given by the visitor's bureau and other city offices. Miller soon apologized and said her remarks were taken out of context. She further stated that she was referring to night time shooting schedule of the production, and that what she had seen of the city was beautiful.
website Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
score of 38, based on 14 reviews. Based on 28 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes
, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh has an overall approval rating from critics of 7% with an average score of 3.9/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, their Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, the film has a rating of just 14%.
CBC News
gave the movie and Thurber a damning review. They felt Thurber was "out of his depth" with the Chabon novel, and were amazed that "Like some act of reverse alchemy, Thurber has taken movie-friendly gold and turned it into dull metal." Reviewer Martin Morrow felt that the film "cuts, combines or perversely twists the book's characters, drops some of the best scenes, skimps on the sex and – unbelievably – substitutes Thurber's leaden writing for Chabon's wit", where the original novel was "just as camera-ready" as Wonder Boys
, which had been adapted into a film
in 2000. Morrow was also critical of Thurber's "timid" take on Art's sexual revelation, and Foster's acting. He described Cleveland as a "perfect role" for Sarsgaard, and was praising of Sarsgaard's acting, but felt the character's humour was missing.
Gay City News
felt that the adaptation compromised the "very literary" debut novel, and criticized Foster's "cheap voice-over narration" for failing to add any dimension to what's happening on screen. Reviewer Gary M. Kramer was critical of the film for excising the character of Arthur, compressing the character of Phlox and for bringing supporting characters Jane and Cleveland into the foreground, and was critical of Sarsgaard's acting. The review concluded that the film "seems a victim of poor planning and bad timing" and was very distant from what he called "the excellent source novel."
One reviewer for Movies.com noted that this "makes the 1137th film in which Peter Sarsgaard is called upon to play a smug, condescending, somewhat unbalanced, louche, bisexual jerk" and suspected the actor might become typecast
. Movies.com were disappointed with the self-pitying and mopy qualities of Foster's character, and consequently felt the movie played as if "watching Felicity if she were a sexually experimental guy." Despite his grievances, reviewer Dave White awarded the film a mildly below average C- rating and commented "I don't want to bash it too much because it's obviously a labor of love from director Rawson Marshall Thurber (he made Dodgeball
just to get the cash to free himself to make this)".
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the film two out of four stars, and felt the movie's premise was too similar to many others, such as the 1980s-set coming-of-age film Adventureland
, which was released the week before. He felt the main character was hard to sympathise with and that the plot was like a "1930s Warner Bros.
social melodrama". He was more praising of the acting for the film's supporting cast, but felt that their characters' motivations were left unclear. Film.com noted the release of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh coincides with the release of The Informers, another Jon Foster film about bisexuals in the 1980s, based on the Bret Easton Ellis
novel of the same name
. Noting that, while reviews for most films have been mixed, "the decision to see Pittsburgh on April 10 or Informers on April 24 is completely subjective -- do you like your literary adaptations debauched and nihilistic or wistful and bittersweet?" and the reviewer opined that he would probably be seeing both.
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon born May 24, 1963) is an American author and "one of the most celebrated writers of his generation", according to The Virginia Quarterly Review....
's best-selling novel of the same name
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is a 1988 novel by American author Michael Chabon. The story is a coming-of-age tale set during the early 1980s in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
, which was published in 1988. The screenplay was written by Rawson Marshall Thurber
Rawson Marshall Thurber
Rawson Marshall Thurber is an American writer and director of films and commercials.In 2002, he wrote and directed the original Terry Tate: Office Linebacker commercials for Reebok. In 2004, he wrote and directed the hit comedy film, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.In January 2006, he signed on...
, who also directed. It was Produced by Michael London
Michael London
Michael London is an American film producer who owns Groundswell Productions. He has produced over 20 films including Sideways, The Visitor, Win Win, and Smart People. The film Sideways was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005...
and Executive Produced by Omar Amanat
Omar Amanat
Omar S. Amanat is an American who has worked as an entrepreneur in the online trading industry and in the media industry.After graduating from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, he worked for a year at the online trading firm Datek Online...
. Shooting in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
ended in October 2006, with the film set for release in 2008
2008 in film
This is a list of all major films made in 2008.-Highest-grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2008...
. It made its world premiere in January 2008 at the Sundance Film Festival. Set in 1980s Pittsburgh, the film follows two young men's affairs with one woman, and later also each other.
Cast
- Jon FosterJon FosterJon Foster is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the 2004 film The Door in the Floor, the 2006 horror movie, Stay Alive, and co-starring opposite Jenna Elfman in the CBS comedy Accidentally on Purpose.-Personal life:Foster was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of...
as Art Bechstein: The well-mannered, intelligent son of a Jewish gangsterGangsterA gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
who gets caught up in a tangled love triangleLove triangleA love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
with Jane and Cleveland, as well as an affair with Phlox. - Sienna MillerSienna MillerSienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...
as Jane Bellwether: Cleveland's girlfriend. In the novel, Jane is a minor character but has been elevated to leading lady in Thurber's adaptation. - Peter SarsgaardPeter SarsgaardJohn Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...
as Cleveland Arning: Jane's rebellious bisexualBisexualityBisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
boyfriend, with whom Art becomes involved. In the novel, Cleveland is an entirely heterosexualHeterosexualityHeterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
character, but in adapting the film, he became merged with the homosexualHomosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
character Arthur Lecomte, one of the novel's key love interests. - Mena SuvariMena SuvariMena Alexandra Suvari is an American actress, fashion designer, and model. Shortly after beginning her career as a model, she appeared in guest roles on 1990's television shows such as Boy Meets World and High Incident...
as Phlox Lombardi: A strange girl who works at the book shop who becomes romantically involved with Art. In the novel, she is one of the main romantic interests along with Arthur, but her role is greatly reduced in the adaptation. - Nick NolteNick NolteNicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
as Joe Bechstein: Art's father is a Jewish gangster who is disappointed with his son's choices, and would like him to become a stockbroker.
History
Earlier attempts to bring Pittsburgh to the big screen failed, including Chabon's own try at adapting the novel. In early 2000, independent filmmaker Jon Sherman (writer and director of 1996's Breathing Room) adapted Chabon's novel into a screenplay, hoping to film it with Jason SchwartzmanJason Schwartzman
Jason Francesco Schwartzman is an American actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Hollywood films Rushmore, Spun, I Heart Huckabees, Shopgirl, Marie Antoinette, The Darjeeling Limited, Funny People, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World...
in the role of Art Bechstein. By August of the same year, Chabon announced that the project had fallen apart, sadly writing, "Ah, well. Maybe someday."
Director Rawson Marshall Thurber
Rawson Marshall Thurber
Rawson Marshall Thurber is an American writer and director of films and commercials.In 2002, he wrote and directed the original Terry Tate: Office Linebacker commercials for Reebok. In 2004, he wrote and directed the hit comedy film, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.In January 2006, he signed on...
got hold of the project sometime prior to 2006, when he began filming after convincing Michael Chabon he could make it work. Chabon had seen the script, and was pleased with it. In order to facilitate the film adaptation, Thurber removed the character of Arthur Lecomte "whole cloth" from the original Chabon novel in what he described as "the most glaring change". Lecomte, a gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
man for whom Art begins to develop feelings, had to be removed because Thurber felt strongly "that in order for the film to function properly, it needed a more efficient and more cinematic engine — in short, a love triangle
Love triangle
A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
." Consequently, many elements of Arthur Lecomte were folded into the character of Cleveland.
Controversy
Cast member Sienna MillerSienna Miller
Sienna Rose Diana Miller is a British-American actress, model, and fashion designer, best known for her roles in Layer Cake, Alfie, Factory Girl, The Edge of Love and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2007, the London Film Criticsnamed her British Actress of the Year for Interview...
created a minor stir in Pittsburgh when, in a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, she referred to the city as "Shitsburgh", saying, "Can you believe this is my life? Will you pity me when you're back in your funky New York apartment and I'm still in Pittsburgh? I need to get more glamorous films and stop with my indie year." Miller has been parodied in Pittsburgh media (including one article that was headlined "Semi-famous actress dumps on the 'Burgh") and criticized for making what was seen as an unnecessarily disparaging remark, given the special treatment the film's cast and crew had been given by the visitor's bureau and other city offices. Miller soon apologized and said her remarks were taken out of context. She further stated that she was referring to night time shooting schedule of the production, and that what she had seen of the city was beautiful.
Reception
Upon major release, reviews were predominantly negative. On review aggregatorReview aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services . This system stores the reviews and then uses them for purposes such as: creating a website for users to view the reviews, selling information to third parties about consumer tendencies and creating databases for...
website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Normalization (statistics)
In one usage in statistics, normalization is the process of isolating statistical error in repeated measured data. A normalization is sometimes based on a property...
rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 38, based on 14 reviews. Based on 28 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh has an overall approval rating from critics of 7% with an average score of 3.9/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, their Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television, and radio programs, the film has a rating of just 14%.
CBC News
CBC News
CBC News is the department within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on CBC television, radio and online services...
gave the movie and Thurber a damning review. They felt Thurber was "out of his depth" with the Chabon novel, and were amazed that "Like some act of reverse alchemy, Thurber has taken movie-friendly gold and turned it into dull metal." Reviewer Martin Morrow felt that the film "cuts, combines or perversely twists the book's characters, drops some of the best scenes, skimps on the sex and – unbelievably – substitutes Thurber's leaden writing for Chabon's wit", where the original novel was "just as camera-ready" as Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys
Wonder Boys is a 1995 novel by the American writer Michael Chabon. It was adapted into a film in 2000.-Plot summary:Pittsburgh professor and author Grady Tripp is working on an unwieldy 2,611 page manuscript that is meant to be the follow-up to his successful, award-winning novel The Land...
, which had been adapted into a film
Wonder Boys (film)
Wonder Boys is a dark comedy film based on the 1995 novel of the same title by Michael Chabon. Directed by Curtis Hanson, it stars Michael Douglas as professor Grady Tripp, a novelist who teaches creative writing at an unnamed Pittsburgh university...
in 2000. Morrow was also critical of Thurber's "timid" take on Art's sexual revelation, and Foster's acting. He described Cleveland as a "perfect role" for Sarsgaard, and was praising of Sarsgaard's acting, but felt the character's humour was missing.
Gay City News
Gay City News
Gay City News is an award-winning, free weekly newspaper based in New York City that focuses on local and national issues relating to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It was founded in 1994 as Lesbian Gay New York, later LGNY, and was sold to Community Media LLC in 2002,...
felt that the adaptation compromised the "very literary" debut novel, and criticized Foster's "cheap voice-over narration" for failing to add any dimension to what's happening on screen. Reviewer Gary M. Kramer was critical of the film for excising the character of Arthur, compressing the character of Phlox and for bringing supporting characters Jane and Cleveland into the foreground, and was critical of Sarsgaard's acting. The review concluded that the film "seems a victim of poor planning and bad timing" and was very distant from what he called "the excellent source novel."
One reviewer for Movies.com noted that this "makes the 1137th film in which Peter Sarsgaard is called upon to play a smug, condescending, somewhat unbalanced, louche, bisexual jerk" and suspected the actor might become typecast
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
. Movies.com were disappointed with the self-pitying and mopy qualities of Foster's character, and consequently felt the movie played as if "watching Felicity if she were a sexually experimental guy." Despite his grievances, reviewer Dave White awarded the film a mildly below average C- rating and commented "I don't want to bash it too much because it's obviously a labor of love from director Rawson Marshall Thurber (he made Dodgeball
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, commonly referred to as simply DodgeBall, is a 2004 American sports comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox and Red Hour Productions, written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and starring Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, and Rip Torn...
just to get the cash to free himself to make this)".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
gave the film two out of four stars, and felt the movie's premise was too similar to many others, such as the 1980s-set coming-of-age film Adventureland
Adventureland (film)
Adventureland is a 2009 Retro comedy-drama film written and directed by Greg Mottola. The film stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Margarita Levieva, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, and Kristen Wiig.-Plot:...
, which was released the week before. He felt the main character was hard to sympathise with and that the plot was like a "1930s Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
social melodrama". He was more praising of the acting for the film's supporting cast, but felt that their characters' motivations were left unclear. Film.com noted the release of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh coincides with the release of The Informers, another Jon Foster film about bisexuals in the 1980s, based on the Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
novel of the same name
The Informers
The Informers is a collection of short stories, seemingly linked by the same continuity, authored by American author Bret Easton Ellis. It was first published as a whole in 1994. Chapters 6 and 7, "Water from the Sun" and "Discovering Japan", were published separately in the UK by Picador in 2007...
. Noting that, while reviews for most films have been mixed, "the decision to see Pittsburgh on April 10 or Informers on April 24 is completely subjective -- do you like your literary adaptations debauched and nihilistic or wistful and bittersweet?" and the reviewer opined that he would probably be seeing both.